In endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) surgical procedures, a long slender surgical instrument may be advanced into a tunnel next to the saphenous vein in a patient's leg, and along the saphenous vein to dissect the vessel away from adjacent tissue, and to sever side-branch vessels along the course of the vessel to be harvested. Similar technique may also be used to harvest a radial artery.
During the EVH procedure, vasculature in tunnel will occasionally bleed. This is a challenge for the individual performing the EVH procedure as well as for the patient. This is because blood may impair visualization of the target site during the procedure, and may cause wound complications for the patient. Existing instruments that perform EVH procedure do not provide bleeding control function to control bleeding at the tunnel. This is because the vessel harvesting instrument needs to have a low profile. Thus, providing an additional energy delivery feature in such instrument for controlling bleeding in the tunnel, which will increase the size of the instrument, is generally not desirable. Also, delivery of monopolar RF energy is not desirable for protecting a vessel. Thus, use of monopolar RF energy for bleeding control in a vessel harvesting procedure has been avoided.